Balloonacy
by ToaKraka
Summary: Fed up with fangirls, Sasuke snaps and tells Sakura he hates weak ninja. Sakura resolves to become stronger - but how can she improve her tiny chakra capacity? Deep in the Academy library, she finds a technique that allows other people to give chakra to her. Maybe, if she gets Naruto to repeatedly fill her coils to bursting, they'll expand - but what might the side effects be?...


_This may or may not be continued. The title will be explained later._

* * *

Uchiha Sasuke usually prided himself on maintaining a sense of aloofness from his fangirls. It was his assumption that they would never cease their attentions until he either chose one of them for his companion ( _not likely! Those useless fools,_ he thought) or became abrasive enough towards them that they changed their opinions from love to hate—and, certainly, the former feeling was preferable to the latter.

So, ordinarily, he would never have spoken to this particular fangirl as he did. Most likely, the outburst was precipitated by the sorrow of the imminent second anniversary of his clan's demise, perhaps compounded by annoyance at some flippant and altogether unwarranted remark made by his class's dead-last or by some other fangirl, or even by disgust at some random villager's unsolicited sympathy for his own plight.

Regardless of all these things, however—Uchiha Sasuke, sitting on a dock at the edge of the Uchiha lands, was in a very bad mood when Haruno Sakura saw fit to approach him and ask him for a date, since he and she were two of the top students in their class, and such obviously-up-and-coming ninja should stick together. His response:

"Do you know what I hate? I hate weak ninja—and _you_ are a weak ninja. I've seen you, flailing worthlessly in sparring—panting with exhaustion after making three simple Clones—whispering with the others about hair and diets instead of practicing shurikenjutsu. Don't even _talk_ to me until you can _see_ my level from the bottom of the ravine that you're stuck in... _weakling."_

And, slightly less stressed-out now that his feelings had been made clear to at least one person, the Last Uchiha rose to his feet and walked grouchily away, not even bothering to look back at his thunderstruck classmate.

Naturally, after he'd had the opportunity to cool down for a few hours, Sasuke realized the danger in which his outburst might have put him in. Though he'd never paid too much attention to the social links among his classmates, he was fairly sure that the fangirls stuck together enough (between the periodic every-girl-for-herself scrambles after some rumored revelation, such as "Sasuke-kun likes long hair!" or "Sasuke-kun hates green!") that the news would spread, Sakura would find sympathetic ears, and the whole mass of them would turn against him, maybe even pursuing him far enough from the Academy to disrupt his training. Still, he really didn't feel that he could deliver anything like a sincere apology—and, when nothing appeared to have happened after three days (beyond, perhaps, a certain subduedness in Sakura's manner), he put the matter from his mind.

* * *

"So. Sasuke likes strong ninja. Ninja who know taijutsu, know shurikenjutsu, and have enough chakra to use ninjutsu properly." Safe in her bedroom, Sakura gritted her teeth. "I can train the first two without _too_ much trouble, I guess—but my chakra is _terrible!_ And Ino already has me beat on taijutsu and chakra, not to mention her clan's techniques! No, I need to improve _fast,_ before the Pig catches on and snags Sasuke. The only question is— _how?"_

If there were any techniques, medical or otherwise, capable of permanently improving a person's chakra capacity, the Academy library didn't have a book that could give it to Sakura. The library had some mentions of soldier pills that were good for a few hours of boosted chakra capacity, but also noted the severe drawbacks that resulted from their extended use, including (but not limited to) burnout of the chakra system, permanent reduction of chakra capacity, and necrosis of the kidneys.

All the way in the back of the medical section, though, in a slightly-yellowed scroll, there were instructions for a very interesting technique...

"Oh, this is _fascinating!"_ Sakura devoured the scroll's contents with her eyes. "What is this—some kind of precursor to the Mystical Palm Technique? But the Palm is so much more complicated than this!"

Indeed, while the Mystical Palm Technique, undisputed king of all-purpose healing techniques, required near-perfect chakra control and years of training to perform without inflicting severe damage on the subject, this "Harmonious Flow" (if the scroll was to be believed) needed only _average_ control and a few _days_ of training. Of course, its effects were rather limited, compared to the Palm's—its intended use was merely the replenishing of a critically-exhausted patient's chakra, rather than near-instantaneous healing. However, it wasn't hard for Sakura to see the possibilities...

* * *

"Hey, Naruto-kun!"

Hardly daring to hope, Naruto whipped around to see his beloved Sakura-chan approaching him as he sat in his seat in Iruka's class (three minutes early, for once)—and with a smile on her face, too! It took him a few seconds to rearrange his expression from dumbfounded astonishment to (what he imagined was) nonchalant coolness.

"Oh—h-hey, Sakura-chan! What's up?"

"Well—" _she was still smiling!_ — "I'm thinking about doing a special project, and I realized that I need your help for it! You see, I need someone with lots of chakra—and I noticed that, whenever Iruka-sensei or Mizuki-sensei calls you up in front of the class to demonstrate a technique, you use so much chakra that I can feel a sort of tingle, even up where I'm sitting!"

"Oh, er, yeah!" Naruto puffed up a little, though he was still a little confused. "I've got tons of chakra! I never run out!"

"Great! That's exactly what I'm looking for, Naruto-kun!" She giggled— _giggled!_ —at the clueless blond, who chuckled likewise.

"So, what do I need to do? You can count on me, whatever it is!" He beamed.

"It's kind of secret—I can't really talk about it here. Meet me at five o'clock outside the Academy, and I'll tell you _all_ about it!" She winked (Naruto almost fainted with joy) and returned to her seat, as Iruka and Mizuki prepared to start the day.

* * *

"Hi again, Naruto-kun!" Sakura waved to Naruto as the latter exited the Academy at four forty-five, having just suffered through a detention and talking-to at Iruka's hands. "Just follow me, and we can talk around the way—but be sure to watch out for prying eyes!" She winked again, but Naruto had built up his resistance a little by this time—he'd been thinking about her last wink all through his detention—so he settled for grinning just a little more broadly than usual.

"So, uh, what did you want to do with—er, what did you want me to do?"

"Oh, nothing much! All I'd like you to do for me is help me with training—but, just to make sure you do your very best, I'll give you a special reward for doing it! If you help me train, I'll help you train—and, also, I'll go on a date with you every week for at least a year, and maybe even longer than that."

Naruto's mouth dropped open in astonishment. _Fifty dates—with Sakura-chan?_ His mind struggled to comprehend the magnitude of his good luck. "Uh—but you don't need to do that for me, Sakura-chan! I'd help you train even if we didn't go on any dates—you know that, right?"

Sakura shrugged. "Well, maybe I'm too soft-hearted to be a ninja, but I just couldn't bear to exploit you like that, Naruto-kun. And, who knows? I don't like you right _now_ —but maybe fifty dates will change that!"

Naruto grinned and saluted. "Well, okay, then! What kind of training will we be doing?"

"Well, that's the tricky part." By this time, they'd arrived at Training Field Six—a peaceful clearing, bisected by a small brook. The two students sat cross-legged on the grass at the clearing's center, and Sakura removed a small scroll from her Academy satchel. "Eventually, I'll teach you a special secret technique that I found—"

Naruto's eyes bulged. "What?! You know a special secret technique?! You're so cool, Sakura-chan!"

Sakura resisted the urge to roll her eyes, and instead smiled genially. "Well, I didn't invent it, you know—I just found it! Anyway, you don't quite have the chakra control to use it yet, so the first phase of our training will be mostly chakra-control exercises. The second phase will be your learning the technique, and—well, we can talk about the third phase when we get to it."

Naruto scratched his head. "Aw, just chakra-control exercises? But they're so boring! And don't you already have, like, super-good chakra control?"

"While you're getting better at controlling your chakra," Sakura elaborated, "I'll be practicing taijutsu forms, and also checking on how you're doing. As for how useful chakra control is, think of it this way: How much chakra control do you think a Hokage needs to use his most powerful techniques?"

"I thought it was hardly any!" Naruto protested. "Don't all the really big techniques need just lots and lots of chakra?"

"Well, I guess that's true for wide-area techniques," Sakura allowed. "But what if you want to use something with more precision—say, if you need to take out an enemy who's holding as a hostage the person you've been hired to protect, or who's carrying a scroll full of important information that you aren't allowed to destroy? Not every mission is just taking out a bunch of bandits. And there are a lot of other useful techniques that you need good chakra control for, like Hiding with Camouflage or Body Replacement or even the Clone Technique."

Naruto winced. "Well, okay, I guess it might be _kind_ of useful..."

"Great! That's the spirit!" Sakura grinned at her charge as she unrolled the small scroll in her hands. "Now, I'm pretty sure you were absent on a few days when we were doing this in class, so—"

"Oh, no!" Naruto groaned. "That dumb leaf-floating thing? Do I really have to do more of _that,_ Sakura-chan?"

Sakura frowned. "Well, if you don't want to do that particular exercise, there are others, you know. Actually, just concentrating your chakra into any body part is good—your pointer finger or your big toe, maybe. Even better would be moving the point of concentration around—maybe from right pinky to left pinky and back again would be more fun?"

Naruto extended his hands in front of himself and gave them a thoughtful look, before laughing. "Yeah, that sounds pretty funny!"

"Well, okay—just hold out your arms straight in front of you and spread apart your fingers, and I'll put my hands on yours, so that I can feel the flow of energy..." She gave him a stern look, anticipating the blush that rose to his cheeks. "And concentrate, Naruto! We can go to Ichiraku later—but, _now,_ we have to train!"

"O-okay, Sakura-chan..." Naruto swallowed and focused on manipulating his chakra—but only a second or two passed before Sakura twitched slightly. "Are you okay, Sakura-chan?"

"Yeah, it's fine—I was just a little scared of getting a burn, or something, when I felt all that chakra right underneath your skin!" The budding kunoichi grinned sheepishly. "But that's silly. Just keep making the energy flow back and forth..."

About a minute passed in silence, as the two students sat in the clearing, legs crossed and eyes closed. Their knees almost touched as they leaned towards each other.

"Well..." At length, Sakura opened her eyes and sighed. "I'm not really a sensor—though I think I might have some aptitude for it—but, as far as _I_ can tell, at least, you need a _lot_ of work, Naruto! Every time you try to concentrate your chakra in your left pinky, I can feel the amount of energy increase across your entire hand—and there's even some fluctuation in your left leg, too! I mean," she continued, as Naruto wilted slightly, "it's good that you at least can split your chakra between left and right! Maybe you can go in stages—first left versus right, then arm versus leg, then fingers versus thumb, and so on..."

Naruto nervously rubbed the back of his head. "Okay, if you say so, Sakura-chan... So, for now, I should just try to push as much chakra as I can into just one arm?"

"Well, not necessarily as _much_ chakra as you can!" Sakura amended. "Sure, a wide-area offensive technique might work fine with that—but a lot of techniques need a specific amount of chakra. For them, too much energy is just as bad as too little energy—they just get overloaded, and pop like a balloon. Just try to put as much chakra as you can into whichever spot you choose, without any spilling over into other places."

"Well, okay! And after this, we'll go to Ichiraku's, right?"

"Actually, I was thinking tomorrow might be better—since Iruka-sensei let you out so late today, I guess you don't really have too much time to do your homework."

"Homework? Ha!" Naruto scoffed. "The great Uzumaki Naruto has no—"

"Do you know what I like in a boyfriend, Naruto-kun?" Sakura interrupted in a honey-sweet voice.

"Well, awesomeness—duh!" The aspiring ninja preened.

"Yes, you might say that. Any boyfriend of mine has to be just as awesome as I am."

"But if I'm—"

"Ah-ah-ah!" Still smiling, Sakura wagged a finger, and Naruto dutifully closed his mouth. "Sure, you're awesome in chakra capacity, and in pranking ability—but no one really pays _that_ much attention to chakra capacity except sensory-types, and people will only get jealous of you if you prank them. Now, do you know what they do pay attention to?"

"Cool techniques!"

"But I can't teach you a cool technique yet, so you've got to get good grades—and they'll pay attention to that. You've noticed them talking about your bad grades, haven't you? What would it look like—" Though the smile remained, Sakura's cheerfulness slowly drained out of her face, as Naruto's blood drained out of his— "What would it look like, do you think, if people saw me—one of the top students in the class!—dating you—the worst student in the class? They wouldn't say, 'Oh, she must be rubbing off on him and making him smarter. How nice of her!' No, they'd say, 'Ha! That idiot! She's letting the dead-last siphon off her brainpower. What a shame.' And we'd both look less awesome. Now, we can't have that—can we, Naruto?"

"O-of course not, Sakura-chan!" Naruto gulped. "Leave it to me—I'll do all my homework just as soon as I get home!"

"Great!" Sakura gave a double thumbs-up. "I'm sure your grade on them tomorrow will be just super. Right?"

"R-right!"


End file.
